Data Science and Performance Analytics

Competence is a human potential for action, leading to performance, when put to action. With tracking, processing, and analysis technology, traces of performance allow prediction of and reasoning about underlying competence.

We deploy data science techniques and technologies to systematically develop a rich toolkit for human performance extraction, analysis, and prediction. In a sense, in this area we do data science with a specialisation in knowledge media.

Just in time for Halloween, we have finalised work on a major release of the ‘WEKIT.one’, our next-generation app for wearable experiences in knowledge-intensive training.

The development of the experience capturing software has been led by members of the Performance Augmentation Lab. This is one of the first of such tools that allows the generation of content to be done completely within AR. Using a HoloLens and other wearable sensors, the software guides experts to record immersive training procedures using all available AR content. Blending 2D and 3D instruction into the workplace creates a far richer and more interactive training experience.

The expert works through the procedure, capturing their actions, thoughts, and guiding instruction step by step. We are able to capture their movement in and around the workplace, their hand positions, and even some additional biophysical signals, such as heart rate variability or galvanic skin resistance. With just the technology at hand, trainees can now visualise the expert, listen to live guidance, and have access to on-demand knowledge about the task at hand.

To now we have seen experts in the field of aircraft maintenance, radiology and astronaut training use this software and, in 2019, we aim to establish new collaboration within the university, within Oxford and abroad – most imminently with the European Space Agency.

In a presentation for Oxford Brookes Computer Science department, Carla Marcolin talked about the work-in-progress “Business Analytics for Unstructured Data”. The main objective of the work is to help fulfill the gap between developed and applied Machine Learning and NLP (Natural Language Processing) techniques, helping business to make better decisions. In the talk, the structure for a classifier based on TripAdvisor comments was presented, along with some next steps. The subsequent high-quality discussion helped to shape and improve the work aspirations. The slides can be found here.

PAL kicked off a new project on effective learning analytics for Augmented Reality learning apps, project LAAR, at the beginning of October, with partners from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and Liechtenstein.

The goal of LAAR is to develop, pilot, and validate an exhaustive set of formative assessment exercises for AR-based vocational training, involving interactive, sequential learning exercises linked up with a directory of competencies (such as ESCO or ETTE). The reusable formative exercises provide direct, smart feedback to the learner, while at the same time enabling the development of summative analytics.

The WEKIT.one prototype is a platform for immersive procedural training with wearable sensors and Augmented Reality. Focusing on capture and re-enactment of human expertise, this work looks at the unique affordances of suitable hard- and software technologies. The practical challenges of interpreting expertise, using suitable sensors for its capture and specifying the means to describe and display to the novice are of central significance here. We link affordances with hardware devices, discussing their alternatives, including Microsoft Hololens, Thalmic Labs MYO, Alex Posture sensor, MyndPlay EEG headband, and a heart rate sensor. Following the selection of sensors, we describe integration and communication requirements for the prototype. We close with thoughts on the wider possibilities for implementation and next steps.

The director of PAL, Dr Fridolin Wild, presented a keynote to the audience of the 12th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL’17, Tallinn, Estonia).

Industry 4.0 is on the rise and this coordinated push for automation, big data, and internet-of-things in the smart factory is already causing (and will continue to) disruption in the job market. New skills for ‘new collar’ jobs are needed and intelligent assistance systems with Augmented Reality, Smart Glasses, and other forms of wearable computing may help to deliver them.

In this talk, Dr. Wild introduced to the concept of Performance Augmentation and illustrated how challenges for the future can be met at the hand of several examples of intelligent training and live guidance applications in aircraft maintenance, space assembly, and medical diagnostics.

The 12th European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning12-15 September 2017, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estoniahttp://www.ec-tel.eu

The European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL) engages researchers, practitioners, educational developers, entrepreneurs and policy makers to address current challenges and advances in the field. This year’s theme of ‘Data Driven Approaches in Digital Education’ focuses on the new possibilities and challenges brought by the digital transformation of the education systems. The increasing amount of data that can be collected from learning environments but also various wearable devices and new hardware sensors provides plenty of opportunities to rethink educational practices and provide new innovative approaches to learning and teaching. This kind of data can provide new insights about learning, inform individual and group-based learning processes and contribute to a new kind of data-driven education for the 21st century.

The conference will explore how data can be used to change and enhance learning in different ways and to collect evidence for technological innovations in learning: for instance multimodal data, personal data stores, data visualisations for learner and teacher awareness, feedback processes, predictions of learning progress, personalisation and adaptation, as well as data-driven learning designs, or ethics and privacy policies for the data-driven future.

Papers should consider data at different scales (individual, group, class, massive) and different dimensions (cognitive, emotional, behavioral) of learner engagement with the technology. We are looking forward to receiving papers that address the conference themes and are informed by theories of pedagogy and evidence of effective practice. Qualitative papers offering robust meta-analyses or having visionary new educational designs are also welcome.

The venue for this year’s conference is Estonia’s capital Tallinn, the best preserved medieval city in Northern Europe directly at the Baltic Sea..

Full Papers, Short Papers, Posters & Demonstrations:

3 April 2017- Mandatory submission of an abstract

10 April 2017 – Submission of full version

29 May 2017 – Notification of acceptance

26 June 2017 – Camera-ready versions

Workshop Proposals

10 April 2017 – Submission of workshop proposal (Abstract not needed)

5 May 2017 – Workshops notification

12 and 13 September 2017- Workshops

Project Meetings

20 June 2017 – Room reservation for project meetings

11, 12 and 13 September 2017- Project Meetings

Conference

24 July 2017 – Early-bird registration ends

14 and 15 September 2017- Main conference, Tallinn University, Estonia

We’ve given the CRAN task view on Natural Language Processing an overhaul and added the following packages to the list:

gutenbergr allows downloading and processing public domain works in the Project Gutenberg collection. Includes metadata for all Project Gutenberg works, so that they can be searched and retrieved.

hunspell is a stemmer and spell-checker library designed for languages with rich morphology and complex word compounding or character encoding. The package can check and analyze individual words as well as search for incorrect words within a text, latex or (R package) manual document.

mscstexta4r provides an interface to the Microsoft Cognitive Services Text Analytics API and can be used to perform sentiment analysis, topic detection, language detection, and key phrase extraction.

mscsweblm4r provides an interface to the Microsoft Cognitive Services Web Language Model API and can be used to calculate the probability for a sequence of words to appear together, the conditional probability that a specific word will follow an existing sequence of words, get the list of words (completions) most likely to follow a given sequence of words, and insert spaces into a string of words adjoined together without any spaces (hashtags, URLs, etc.).

Dr Fridolin Wild will be giving a keynote at the Orphee Rendezvous in Font Romeu, France, to help shape the future research agenda of the French technology-enhanced learning R&D community. Orphee is a network of networks with over 30 partner organisations. The retreat takes place January 31 and February 1, 2017, in the Pyrenees and will bring together experts in the field. Dr Wild will speak about Performance Augmentation.

Here’s the abstract: Augmented Reality (AR) gained momentum in recent years, branching out beyond mere object-superimposition in marketing to more complex use cases. Other than Virtual Reality, AR refers to enhancing regular human perception with additional, artificially generated sensory inputs, merging natural and digital offers into a combined experience. Obviously, such novel technology is relevant to education and training. AR offers potential especially for human performance augmentation: to improve efficiency and effectiveness of learners through extended live guidance. In this talk, Dr. Wild will introduce to the concept of Performance Augmentation and report on latest findings from the R&D projects ARPASS, WEKIT, and TCBL.

The lecture notes in computer science (LNCS 6964) of the 6th European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning, co-edited by Dr. Fridolin Wild, reached a total of over 41,166 chapter downloads (thereof more than 11k in 2015) for the eBook on SpringerLink. This means, the book was one of the top 25% most downloaded eBooks in the relevant Springer eBook Collection in 2015.

The WAPLA workshop aims at analyzing with an applied and practical perspective different issues and challenges related to learning analytics. Learning analytics can be broadly defined as the methods and techniques to reach conclusions about the learning process in order to improve it. First of all, there is a need of collecting data since you cannot improve what you do not monitor. Nowadays, there are proper technical tools to collect and retrieve all the interactions of the users with the different learning resources and activities. The retrieve of these data enables its analysis and the application of learning analytics for improving the learning process. Scenarios such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) provides a good case study as it makes even more necessary the application of learning analytics techniques because there is a need of tools for teachers to easily monitor the learning process and students for receiving automatic feedback and awareness. The correct practical application of learning analytics can bring a lot of advantages. Many issues should be considered for a successful application of learning analytics in courses and in the organizations as a whole.

Follow us

Subscribe

About PAL

The Performance Augmentation Lab (PAL) within the Department of Computing and Communications Technologies (CCT) seeks to close the dissociative gap between abstract knowledge and its practical application, researching radically new forms of linking directly from knowing something ‘in principle’ to applying that knowledge ‘in practice’ and speeding its refinement and integration into polished performance.